A new Aerospace Series standard was issued in October 2014:
AS9116 Notice of Change (NOC) Requirements.
It can be used alone or in addition to AS9100C, AS9110 (Aviation Maintenance) or AS9120 (Distributors).
To complicate matters further, AS9116 is for use with AS9100C which is also going to change in 2016. The AS9100 (2016) revision will be based on the new ISO9001:2015 with additions for aerospace requirements.
AS9116 Terms and Definitions require that baseline configurations for the physical product and its performance requirements must be established and verified with the customer.
“Product” as defined in the standard “may include software that embedded is or field loadable in the item”. These configurations form the basis for Design Control. (I can see heads nodding and yes, yes, yes) but be wary; Section 4 Configuration Change Definitions contains among others items such as “Changes that require customer acceptance prior to implementation” and “Changes implemented concurrent with notification for customer acceptance.” (Yes, I know, it took me a moment or two to figure that one out…)
So where should design approval representatives concentrate verification resources? The way I see it, start with the RFQ and its relation to the design history of current contracts. If a new contract emerges:
- identify at which level in the design NOCs are (or might be) required (including Preliminary Design Review stages)
- by whose authority and responsibility they will be issued.
- resources involved (supply chain)
- current status of Master Document List (revision status of design documents)
- identify, establish and verify baseline configurations with the customer together with design change authorisation levels; i.e.,
Customer requirements
Design history from current or past contracts
AS9116 requirements
AS9102 Revision B (R) Aerospace First Article Inspection Requirement issued in October 2014. Also used in conjunction with AS9100. AS9102 refers specifically to “…design characteristics of the product…”
AS9103 Validation Management of Key Characteristics
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AS9116 is much more prescriptive than usual, but I am happy to say that the QUALIDOC Design Development and Control procedure covers just about everything you need to meet this standard, with help from the invaluable and very popular QUALIDOC Quality System Internal Audit Checklist covering the whole quality system, including Design Control and Development.
Comments on this blog are more than welcome.
www.qualidoc.co.uk
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